What does Tomb-Sweeping Day eat?
In addition to a series of customs and sports activities such as banning fires, sweeping graves, climbing mountains and inserting willows, the customs of Tomb-Sweeping Day in Guangdong Province also account for a large proportion. So what does Tomb-Sweeping Day eat? The following small series introduces you.
Qiao Cai
1, buckwheat vegetables
Qiaocai is an indispensable seasonal vegetable on the dining table in Tomb-Sweeping Day, Guangdong. Because it sounds the same as "sedan chair", it means that ancestors will go home in a sedan chair to avoid the pain of being warm and cold at first.
After the sacrifice in Guangzhou, it is not a complete form of offering sacrifices to pork. Family members will take pork home during the Qingming Festival and fry it with the vegetable "Qingming buckwheat dish". Others are too lazy to use this "Qingming buckwheat dish" with some shredded eggs and stir-fry some spring rolls. After eating these dishes, this year's "clearing the line" task will be completed.
2, shepherd's purse
Shepherd's purse is a seasonal vegetable in spring, summer and March, which is deeply loved by the people because of its homonym with "gathering wealth" There is a folklore about shepherd's purse. When Tomb-Sweeping Day worships his ancestors, with the help of ancestors' gods and wealth, people will wash fresh shepherd's purse and bundle it into small bundles, add eggs, red dates and balloons, add two or three slices of ginger, and cook it in a big pot. Everyone will eat a bowl, which will not only make a fortune, but also prevent headaches and dizziness. Over time, a kind of food is formed. In addition, shepherd's purse is also called "auspicious dish" because it is homophonic with "auspicious".
On the third day of the third lunar month, don't forget to boil eggs with shepherd's purse. Boiling eggs with shepherd's purse is the most common practice in Tomb-Sweeping Day. The specific method is actually very simple: first, wash the fresh shepherd's purse and tie it into small bundles, add eggs, red dates, balloons, and then add 2-3 slices of ginger, and you can cook it into a big pot for the whole family to eat.
Step 3: eggs
Tomb-Sweeping Day also eats boiled eggs because it's near Shangsi Festival. Tomb-Sweeping Day eats an egg, which keeps him healthy all the year round. There are two kinds of eggs in Tomb-Sweeping Day, one is "painting eggs" and the other is "carving eggs". The former is edible, while the latter is just for enjoyment.
Eating eggs originated in the ancient Shangsi Festival. People ask for marriage and children. They cooked eggs, duck eggs, bird eggs and other eggs and painted them in various colors, which were called "multicolored eggs". They came to the river, threw colorful eggs into the river, and went down the river, waiting for people downstream to compete and peel them. After eating, they can reproduce. Eating eggs in Tomb-Sweeping Day now symbolizes satiety.
4. Aizan
Eating mugs in Tomb-Sweeping Day is a traditional custom in Guangdong. The mugwort in Tomb-Sweeping Day is called Qingming Hairpin. On the eve of Tomb-Sweeping Day, citizens went to the wild to pick mugwort leaves, cut them into pulp, made cakes with rice flour and sugar, and steamed them for everyone to eat. Because Artemisia argyi has the effect of eliminating dampness and strengthening the spleen and stomach, it is said that eating Qingming hairpin is strong.
To make mugwort, generally, the mugwort paste is mixed with glutinous rice flour, water and sugar, then the dough is kneaded into small balls, rounded and flattened, the stuffing such as peanut paste and sesame seeds is wrapped in the dough, sealed and kneaded into a flat circle, put on banana leaves, put in a pot and steamed for about 20 minutes, and then the fragrant mugwort can be baked.
5. Vegetable jiaozi
On the eve of Tomb-Sweeping Day, the tradition of eating "vegetable dumplings" has been circulating among Nanxiong Hakkas living in the mountainous area of northern Guangdong, in addition to paying homage to and remembering their ancestors. According to legend, eating Package Ci made of gardenia and glutinous rice in Tomb-Sweeping Day can not only ward off evil spirits, but also clear away heat and remove dampness.
The humble vegetable bag has a long history. It is said that Caibao Restaurant was originally a snack for boat people in Nanxiong Zhenjiang area, so it is also called "boatman restaurant". Nanxiong Zhuji Lane is a famous transit point for Guangfu people to move southward, and it is also a gathering place for Hakka people. It is said that the Zhongyuan people who moved south in the Tang and Song Dynasties used wheat as flour to cook steamed buns in spring and summer. After all the way down to Lingnan, due to the lack of wheat,
pancake
6.zongzi
To commemorate the "Cold Food Festival" (the day before Tomb-Sweeping Day), it is a folk custom to eat zongzi much earlier than the Dragon Boat Festival. Nowadays, the folk custom of eating zongzi the day before in Tomb-Sweeping Day and Tomb-Sweeping Day is still popular in many places. According to Guang Ningxian's records, Zongzi is essential for local Tomb-Sweeping Day to pay homage to their ancestors. "Zongzi" is the homonym of "many sons", which means that people are prosperous.
The famous varieties of Cantonese dumplings are: sour water dumplings, roast duck dumplings, lard bean paste dumplings, barbecued egg yolk dumplings, fresh meat egg yolk dumplings, coconut dumplings and so on. There are four-corner zongzi and five-corner zongzi in the package form, of which "assorted steamed zongzi" weighs 50.
7.snails
Tomb-Sweeping Day is the best time to eat snails. Because snails are the most fertile at this time, there is a saying that "a snail is worth a goose in Qingming". Snails can be eaten in many ways. They can be fried with onion, ginger, soy sauce, cooking wine and sugar. You can also cook, pick snail meat, mix, drink, rot and simmer. If you eat properly, it can really be called "a snail is not worth a thousand things, and wine is not as good as food."
When people in Guangdong and Guangxi fry snails, they like to use garlic and fresh perilla leaves as ingredients, which not only makes the snail meat more delicious, but also has a certain bactericidal effect.
8, pancakes
Qingming cake is very popular in Chaoshan, and almost every household is no exception. It is said that it evolved from the custom of ancient cold food festival. Guo Ming Zhang Zi said in Miscellaneous Notes in Tide: "Onion sugar in Tide is extremely white and loose, and there is no dregs." It can be seen that Chaoshan had the custom of sugar onion pancakes in the Ming Dynasty.
Pancakes are divided into skin and stuffing. The skin is a round cooked dough, and it is best to be as thin as paper. There are two kinds of stuffing: salty and sweet. Salty is mainly eggs, fresh meat, bacon and so on. And chopped green onion can be mixed into clinker made of mushrooms, bean sprouts, leeks and the like. If you make sweet pancakes, they will be specially processed into' sugar onions', put them away when they are ready, and then roll them up with pancake skins to eat.
9. Pu Guo Zi
Pu is a steamer used to sweep graves in Tomb-Sweeping Day. It is said that Yuan soldiers invaded Chaoshan area before Tomb-Sweeping Day, killing and plundering, and the people were in dire straits. People were forced to hide in the mountains. They were hungry, so they had to pick leaves and fruit seeds to satisfy their hunger. Later generations always remember the deep hatred, so there is a folk proverb of "eating leaves in Qingming". From generation to generation, the custom of processing steamed "shop pots" in Tomb-Sweeping Day has been passed down to this day.
When making cakes, the leaves and fruits (kernels) of the cakes are first mashed, then mashed with rice into powder, fermented and mixed with sugar, and finally steamed in a pottery model or a plum blossom model. Generally, there are two kinds of common seeds: plum blossom type and peach type, and there are also bowls of fermented peaches. The steamed seeds are grass green, and everyone smiles, which always gives people a beautiful feeling of spring.
roast suckling pig
10, sugarcane
Guangzhou people call sweeping graves "mountain worship" or "hiking". After worshipping the mountain, divide the sugar cane, throw the eaten bagasse to the grave, and break the buns and scatter them to the grave. Sugarcane means higher and higher. Zhaoqing and Tomb-Sweeping Day also have the custom of eating sugar cane, which means happiness and sweetness. Adults will tell their children from beginning to end to eat sugar cane, not to eat or throw it away. It is said that only in this way can things be completed.
Three principles should be paid attention to when selecting sugarcane. First, touch and test the softness and hardness of sugarcane; Second, see if the pulp of sugarcane changes color; The third is to smell it and identify if there is any odor in sugarcane. Mildew sugarcane is soft in texture, and its pulp is slightly dark brown, with a slight smell of distiller's grains. In addition to appearance, pay attention to the center and skin of sugarcane when peeling. If it is a red heart, don't buy it. Some unscrupulous traders may squeeze moldy sugarcane into sugarcane juice. It is recommended that you do not buy and drink sugarcane juice of unknown origin.
1 1, roast suckling pig
In Guangdong, Tomb-Sweeping Day's roast suckling pig is an indispensable sacrifice to his ancestors, and the Cantonese have also given it some very kind names-"Good luck" and "Red skin and strong body", offering a crispy golden pig to his ancestors, hoping to bless future generations with good health, harmonious family and bright future.
In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Jia Sixie recorded the roast suckling pig in detail in the Book of Qi Yao Min: "The color is like amber, like real gold. The entrance disappears immediately, and it is as strong as Ling Xue, containing cream and moistening, and it is absolutely vulgar. " According to records, "take suckling piglets, slaughter them, wash them, remove the five internal organs, fill their stomachs with thatch, put them through with oak sticks, put them on the fire, simmer for a while, and coat the suckling pigs with wine." Skin is easy to develop color. " Finally, the surface of the suckling pig turns amber, and you're done.